“Do you believe it?” Shahid asked Hal, sitting in the chair facing Hal’s bed.
“I—I don’t know,” Hal replied. “It can’t be true, can it? I mean, a secret plot to hide aliens that can see the future?”
“Well, tomorrow we can at least check out one part of Mr Foster’s story.” Shahid leant forward in his chair, extended his arm, and dangled a key in front of him. “The old man had his keys for the estate hanging from a cork board.”
Shahid tossed the key to Hal who read the tag linked to the keyring: Boiler room.
9
THE BOILER ROOM sat like a pillar box guarding the football field, away from the housing blocks; a concrete slug with a single metal door. A strip of frosted glass along one wall was its only other feature. Using the key they’d taken from Mr Foster’s flat, Hal unlocked the heavy door and heaved it inwards.
The door opened into a room full of plumbing. Six large tanks took up most of the space, hooked up to pipes running into the metal floor. The air was warm and thick, the smell of oil was overpowering. Nothing obviously moved, but a cacophony rose from the tanks: liquids flooding through the pipes and the clicks of burners turning on and off, maintaining a steady temperature in the tanks.
Shahid closed the door behind them, encasing themselves in the gloom. Hal flicked the switch by the door and strong lights flickered on overhead, washing the tanks in a harsh glow. A bolted hatch in the floor in front of them stood out; he drew the bolt and together they lifted the hatch to reveal a ladder to a concrete passage below. Hal climbed down into the darkness first.
“What do you see?” Shahid asked from above him.
“It’s dark, but it looks like the corridor heads back to the estate, maybe towards the washroom,” Hal replied.
Shahid climbed down into the dark corridor, leaving the hatch open for the little light it gave. It was too tight a passage to walk side by side, so Hal took the lead. The walls of the tunnel were lined with wide pipes radiating heat. He set off down the tunnel, plunging into total darkness after thirty feet or so. He held his hands out in front of him so as not to walk into anything blocking his way. Every few steps he’d graze one of the pipes with his arms or shoulder, scalding his skin on the hot iron.
As Hal walked into the dark, he began to hear singing on the thick air, growing louder as he walked. He couldn’t make out the words, but the music was punctuated with rhythmic stamping and clapping.
“Do you hear that?” Hal whispered.
“Keep going, it’s getting louder.”
After sixty feet or so Hal’s hands hit a metal door, and he stopped to feel for a handle. Shahid walked into his back and they stumbled forward, the door opening under their weight.
The door opened onto a large square room lined with beds and tables, its centre cleared of furniture but for a single table laden with candles. In a wide circle around the table were tall figures, singing and clapping. They moved in time with the music in a slow sidestepping circle, the candles casting flickering, bowing shadows on the walls. Bone effigies of birds and other small animals hung from the ceiling by fine threads. The strange talismans swung in slow circles, disturbed by the motion of the figures below. The flickering gave them a ghostly life.
One figure led the chanting song, bathed in candlelight. Hal stared at his face—it was featureless, besides a small, lipless mouth. No eyes, nose, or ears, like an unfinished marble sculpture.
The figures paid him no attention and continued their song. Hal tried to pick out the words, but the language was like nothing he’d heard. If there were individual words in the music, they ran into one another, rising and falling lyrically in one unbroken chain.
Shahid stood in wonder, taking in the scene.
“I’m looking for Goan.”
The singing and dancing stopped.
“I’m looking for Goan,” Hal repeated, louder than before.
“Goan?” the leader said, turning his head towards Hal to stare at him blindly. “That’s what he calls himself now.”
“My name is Hal, this is my friend Shahid. Goan’s been teaching me to see like he does—like you do.”
The figures closest to Hal parted, clearing the way for their leader.
“And what is it that we see?”
“The future,” Hal said, hesitating.
“We are the channel, a stone fixed in the riverbed, aware of the current and the water, where it has come from and where it is going to. Whatever he has been teaching you, it is not that. You are a tribe that is carried by the current.”
“You’re wrong. I saw the future when Goan saved my life.” Hal raised his arm and pulled down his sleeve to show the marks on his wrist. “He is teaching me to understand what I saw.”
“Shande saved your life?” The leader turned to the other figures assembled around him. “Again our brother transgresses. How many violations must we allow this radical before another yeger is born?”
Shahid gripped Hal’s wrist and whispered, “I think we should go.”
Ignoring him, Hal asked, “What is it that he did wrong? He saved my life.”
“What right do we have to manipulate the current? We are blessed to see the stream, but it is not for us to alter its course.”
Shahid backed towards the door, tugging at Hal’s arm to have him follow.
“You’re criticising him? Do you even know what the world is like above you? You’ve lived in a concrete bunker for three decades.”
The leader strode towards Hal, raising his voice. “It is not for you to tell us our duty, Golem! If you can’t find Shande, then he did not mean to meet you. Now leave us, before we fix his change in fate.”
Hal backed away, letting Shahid pull him towards the door and into the corridor. The creature slammed the door shut, and Hal heard the sound of a metal bar being slid home, locking it in place. Left in the dark, Hal seethed.
“They’re real. They’re really real,” Shahid said. “Did you see their faces? What were they singing?”
“‘It is not for us to tell them their duty’? He wanted me to have died. Who does he think he is?”
“Please, Hal, let’s get out of this tunnel,” Shahid said.
Shahid set off ahead, head bowed, nearly running. Hal followed more slowly, his mind racing.
OUT IN THE light, the hatch bolted and the boiler room locked behind them, Hal could see how shaken Shahid was. His skin had gone pale; he was looking around to check they weren’t being watched.
“I’m not going back in there, Hal.”
“But we’re finally finding something out.”
“Did you see all the bones? The ceiling was strung up with them. I could recognise some of the animals, but their skeletons had been assembled all wrong.”
“Shahid, we’ve found aliens. Real-life aliens.”
“We found monsters, Hal.”
10
THE BOYS WENT their separate ways, Shahid telling Hal to leave him out of his plans, at least for now.
That night over dinner, Hal pieced together what he’d learned and how he could find out more. He could try and ask the Rag and Bone Man—Goan, Shande, whatever his name was—but he’d likely just avoid his questions. Mr Foster didn’t know anything more. He could try going into the basement of the boiler room again, but as much as he wanted to get answers, he didn’t much like the prospect of going down there without Shahid. If he could just find out where the Farreter were before they came to Leeds, then maybe he might learn why they were here on Earth.
“What’s going on with you?”
Hal looked up from his mashed potato. “Huh?”
“What’s going on with you?” Hal’s mum asked him again. “You’ve hardly said a word to me tonight.”
Hal stared at her.
“Where have you been going all day? Yes, I know you’ve been leaving the flat, I’m not dim.”
“I’ve been exploring with Shahid.”
“If I find you’ve been up on that roof again—”
“Oh? That sounds... surprisingly wholesome. Did he have lots of stories?”
“Yeah, though he was muddled about things. He doesn’t know much about how the estate was built.”
“If that’s something you want to know, you should come with me to the university when you’re feeling better. I’m sure there’s something in the archive under the Brotherton. Every newspaper published in Leeds is stored down there. There must be lots about Quarry Hill.”
She carried on about how they would go when he was well, but Hal was already planning how he could get to the university without her knowing.
THAT NIGHT, LYING in bed, one thing ran round his head over and over. He was sure the leader had called him ‘Golem.’ Maybe it was coincidence and the word meant something different to the Farreter, but Hal recognised the word: it was the name of the monster in the story Eli had read to him when he was ill—the man made of clay that protected the Jews of Prague. Hal couldn’t work out why the Farreter leader had called him that, or how he even knew the word. He tossed it around in his head before finally falling asleep.
HAL LAY AWAKE in bed the next morning, waiting for his mum to leave for work. After the click of the front door closing, he made himself a quick breakfast and headed down to the bus stop.
Just in case, when he reached the arch of Oastler House, he slowed his walk and crept through the tunnel, watching ahead to see if he could spot his mum still waiting for a bus into town. There was no queue at the stop; a bus must have just gone. He took a place at the stand, rattling the change in his pocket.
Despite the warmth of the day, Hal felt cold and clammy. When the bus came, he took his seat and focused on the city passing by outside the window to keep alert.
THE STEPS OF the Parkinson Building were dotted with clusters of students enjoying the sun —dozing, talking and smoking. None of them paid him any attention as he hurried up the steps and heaved open the heavy door.
Inside he saw his first obstacle: the receptionists’ desk. He hadn’t got familiar with them when he spent the week cleaning the staff room, but couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t recognise him.
Hal ducked behind one of the wide columns that lined the inside of the hall. The entrance to the Brotherton was directly opposite the doors, but if he walked across the lobby he’d be spotted for sure. He was scanning the room for a route out of sight of the receptionists’ panopticon when the solution burst through the doors of the Parkinson, led by a student enthusiastically pointing out the particulars of the architecture. A tour of prospective undergrads.
Hal overheard snatches of the parents’ hushed observations—“Isn’t this grand?” “Can’t you just picture yourself here?” “It’s much nicer than Liverpool.” Hal slipped from his hiding place as the group passed him, and wormed into the thick of the scrum.
“Construction of the Parkinson building began in 1938,” the student tour guide shouted, struggling to make herself heard over the din. “Work stopped at the outbreak of the war, though, and it wasn’t completed until 1951. The building is named after Leeds alumni Frank Parkinson, who donated funds to the building’s construction.”
The tour moved past the receptionists’ post and towards the entrance to the library. Hal could see the library’s front desk, staffed by one solitary librarian, barring the staircases to the collection from anyone lacking a library card.
“Ahead of us is the Brotherton Library. Opened in 1936, it housed all of the University of Leeds’ books and manuscripts, except for the medical textbooks and Clothworkers’ Collection. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to go inside; we wouldn’t want to disturb any students hard at work.”
The librarian was looking down at something on the desk, and the tour group was turning away; this was his chance. Hal darted forwards, ducking below the lip of the desk. Keeping low, he shuffled round the curved wall of the desk and up the staircase.
Hal pushed through the doors and stopped. The library was like no building he had seen: two stories high, with a great domed roof, and ringed by slender columns. The walls and columns were pond-green, startling after the stark white of the Parkinson. The warm light slanting through the dome’s curved windows gave the space a comforting feel, taking the edge off its cavernous size.
Looking back down, Hal was entranced by the desks and writing tables crossing the marble floor, radiating from the podium at the centre of the room. Students sat dotted around the tables, poring over their work, books spread before them like peacock’s feathers in a display of quiet competition. There was no way they all actually needed quite so many books at a time.
Hallways led from the room to other collections, and staircases led to the upper gallery and the basements below.
From a floorplan on the wall, Hal learned that the newspaper archive was stored in the second basement. He quietly crossed the room to the stairs. Unlike the cacophony outside in the library, all was quiet and still. No one looked up from their books as he passed. It was like walking through a mannequin display in a clothes shop.
Down the stairs, the air became colder still. This was where the university archived its journals; the temperature was kept low and the air dry in order to preserve the pages. The basements were circular, like the library above, study rooms punctuating the curving corridor. The central chamber was filled with metal bookcases, each six foot tall at least, pressed together so you couldn’t get in between them. Each case was marked with a metal plaque engraved with dates; over the plaques were metal wheels.
Hal walked the ringed corridor trying to work out where the newspapers were kept, and was startled by a hand on his shoulder.
“Hal?”
Hal felt his stomach go cold.
“It is you, isn’t it?”
Hal turned around and his heart leapt: Rose.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “Only you’ve done two laps of the doughnut and you looked like you were searching for someone.”
“Rose! Please, you can’t tell anyone I was here.”
Rose ducked low with theatrical stealth.
“Why ever not? Are you on a secret mission?”
“I’m trying to find something, but my mum can’t know I’m here.”
“What are you looking for?”
“She told me all the newspapers published in Leeds were down here, but I can’t find any of them, let alone all.”
“Newspapers? You know that one of the few original copies of Shakespeare’s plays is upstairs?” Rose looked Hal up and down with mock despair. “Well, I don’t know about all of the newspapers, but I think I know what she was talking about. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Rose led Hal by the hand to a set of shelves.
“When’s your birthday, Hal?”
“May 4th, 1953.”
“1953... 1953...” Rose said to herself as she traced a finger along the shelving plaques. “Ah-hah.” She gripped the metal wheel on the end of one of the cases and began to turn. The whole bookcase moved sideways, opening up a gap in the block.
As Rose led Hal between the bookcases, she explained how each case was sorted by publication and date. Hal couldn’t see any books or papers on the shelves, only rows and rows of plain white boxes, each with a label taped to one side. He had the eerie sensation that he’d been there before. Rose stopped in front of one shelf and started searching along it with her finger, muttering, “May 4th... May 4th...” She stopped in front of one of the boxes, plucked it from the shelf and gave it a gentle shake. “In here is the people’s history of Leeds, Hal.”
Rose set off down the hall, still talking to herself. “Now we just need a reader...” She walked back to the corridor and started peering through the windows of the study rooms. Eventually finding what she was looking for, she opened the door and ushered Hal inside.
Besides the desks and tables Hal expected, there was a strange machine against one wa
ll. Rose flicked a switch on the front and a large panel on its face lit up with a yellow glow. She pulled out a tray below the glowing panel and opened the box she’d taken from the archive.
“This is called a ‘microfilm,’” Rose said, handing the reel to Hal. “It’s like the film reels at a cinema, but each frame is a photo of a page of a newspaper. Using this”—she pointed to the machine with her thumb—“you can blow it up to read it.”
Taking the reel back from Hal, Rose fixed it to a pin next to the glass tray, unspooled the end of the film, and ran it under the glass tray to a spool on the other side. Hal watched with fascination as the glowing panel filled with a blurred newspaper image.
“Just need to focus it,” Rose said, turning one of the wheels on the front of the microfilm reader. The page on the panel sharpened until Hal could make out the words Yorkshire Evening Post and above them January 3rd, 1953.
“You can use this wheel here to move through the pages,” Rose said, pointing to another wheel.
Hal spun the wheel and watched the year’s news flash by.
“Not so fast! Look, you’re already in April. The tiniest turn is enough.”
Hal gave the dial a careful turn, finding May 4th, 1953. The newspaper from the day he was born. It was a weird sensation: the day he was born was just like any other day, as far as the rest of the world was concerned.
“Look at that, Experts See Comet Wreckage,” Rose said, pointing to a story halfway down the page. Then with a tone of disappointment, “Oh, it’s only about a Comet Jet airliner. I hoped for a moment the Post would be covering a British Roswell.”
Hal looked at Rose blankly.
“You know, the Roswell incident? When aliens supposedly crash-landed in New Mexico,” Rose said, smiling. “I don’t believe it really, but the rumour goes that aliens crashed in America in the ’40s and the government tried to cover it up. It’s nonsense, but a fun story. Anyway, I best get back to my work. If I show you how to take the microfilm off the reader, do you think you can put it back when you’re done?”
Invaders From Beyond Page 26
